CCCP-86512 was the Il-62 leased by Air India from Aeroflot.
Does anyone remember if it had the Air India markings on the tail?
I recount glancing up aand having a fleeting glimpse at an Il-62 with reddish markings on its tail quite high up in the sky, so I wanted to be sure. This was in the late 80s.
Possibly the only picture around is this one:
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Air-India-(Aeroflot)/Ilyushin-Il-62M/1072754/L/
I wonder if anyone on the forum has any other picture of this craft.
Thanks, Sumantra.

Wow 747-237, that's a good find.
Bad luck that there are no other pics around - but someone on this forum must have seen this plane in question - or was it too early for most of the current members?
Cheers, Sumantra.

Wow 747-237, that's a good find.
Bad luck that there are no other pics around - but someone on this forum must have seen this plane in question - or was it too early for most of the current members?
Cheers, Sumantra.

Sumantra, you might be right on that it was way back in the 1980s, so might be too early for most to have spotted it. I remember seeing the IL-62 routes on my Dad's 'broadsheet' (i.e. a timetable from AI operations that the cockpit crew got, with a little more info. than the regular timetables.
If I recall correctly, the IL-62 used to operate on the DEL-SVO route, so she perhaps never came to BOM, & hence I never did see her.

Another 'ghost plane' that always peaked my interest is the leased L-1011 from Caribjet, with the reg. VT-LEO. Apparently she was leased by AI only for one day !! Here is the only pic I ever found of her & often wondered what the full story was behind the hybrid colors being applied for a day !

Thanks for the very prompt reply, 747-237!
Yes, I have also wondered about this particular plane in question, and most searches for AI Tristars usually land up with V2-LEJ and V2-LEK. Yes, I do not think the Il-62M ever came to BOM. Roy (COUGAR) may have more information on V2-LEO
(pun unintended - Cougar, and LEO!!)
Cheers, Sumantra.

Wow 747-237 - I do not know if I can thank you enough.
Can you also give the sources for the pics, and some other links?
Are there any other pics available? A.net has some dead links for some pictures.
I wonder if anyone has a cached copy. Further, maybe someone on both fora may have some clue to the article poster, or some picture.
The part on the history was wonderful - thank you!
Well, I guess that the tail was indeed white, and the only Air-India signage was
at two places - the Centaur on the outer engines, and the Air-India titles in English and Hindi on the two sides. So the Il-62M I would have seen high in the sky may have been on an unscheduled flight, possibly a VIP one - the one whose tail I had thougth to be red. (I had just put two and two together that time...) And CSA did not have a service then to DEL, did it?
Cheers, Sumantra.

They sure did ! Still have vague recollections of my trips aboard the AI 707s first class as a child.

sumantra wrote:

Wow 747-237 - I do not know if I can thank you enough.
Can you also give the sources for the pics, and some other links?
Are there any other pics available? A.net has some dead links for some pictures.
I wonder if anyone has a cached copy. Further, maybe someone on both fora may have some clue to the article poster, or some picture.
The part on the history was wonderful - thank you!

You're welcome, Sumantra. Glad to be of help. Will let you know what I find.

sumantra wrote:

Well, I guess that the tail was indeed white, and the only Air-India signage was
at two places - the Centaur on the outer engines, and the Air-India titles in English and Hindi on the two sides. So the Il-62M I would have seen high in the sky may have been on an unscheduled flight, possibly a VIP one - the one whose tail I had thougth to be red. (I had just put two and two together that time...) And CSA did not have a service then to DEL, did it?
Cheers, Sumantra.

Yes, it was probably CSA......I remember seeing them at BOM, though don't recall if they served DEL. Could it have been just good old Aeroflot ?? Or Interflug (did they ever come to India....I remember seeing them at a gate, just don't remember where ) !

Coming back to the Caribjet leased L-1011, (V2-LEO to be more specific), here are a few pics of the Indian flight attendants who worked those flights. (So here's another 'Blast from the Past' for you ) !!

747-237 wrote:
"Yes, it was probably CSA......I remember seeing them at BOM, though don't recall if they served DEL. Could it have been just good old Aeroflot ?? Or Interflug (did they ever come to India....I remember seeing them at a gate, just don't remember where ) ! "

Hmm... no, it wasn't Aeroflot, I'm quite sure, since a split-second after the reddish tail, I looked under the wings - no CCCP written there. As a Delhi-ite, I quite admired the Aeroflot Il-62Ms, but they did not pose any surprise to me in terms of their liveries.

747-237 wrote:
"Coming back to the Caribjet leased L-1011, (V2-LEO to be more specific), here are a few pics of the Indian flight attendants who worked those flights. (So here's another 'Blast from the Past' for you ) !!"

Wow - this is really incredible. Really incredible. This was a one-day lease, and you have managed to get pictures of the crew on this flight also!
Getting greedy, do you have any other pics of the aircraft with Air India titles?
We would love to see them!
Further, thanks for the AI Il-62M offer - yes, I'll certainly look forward (no, in all other directions as well), for any other pictures or information on that!
Thanks and regards, Sumantra.

Wow - this is really incredible. Really incredible. This was a one-day lease, and you have managed to get pictures of the crew on this flight also!

Sumantra, the pics are of the Indian Cabin crew who were on the L-1011s, so they probably worked on the other two (LEK & LEJ) was well, besides LEO. The pics are probably not from the LEO 1-day lease but other AI L-1011 flights, but nonetheless are still a treat.
The lady in the center pic is (apparently) riding the cockpit jump seat, & the ladies in the pool are the crew during initial training in Mauritius.
Will try & find some more pics of LEO with AI titles.

@747-237, I am really speechless at your memory, and your incredible capacity and endeavour in digging up an exactly-three-year-old topic, and adding three invaluble gems to it! In the intereim, I had only come across Mr. Jimmy Wadia's pic of the Il-62M taking off from BOM.
Thanks, once again!
Sumantra.

awesome stuff @747-237!_________________Causal Determinism : We are hardwired to need answers. The Caveman who heard a rustle in the bushes and checked out to see what it was, lived longer than the guy, who assumed it was just a breeze.

This definitely did - thank you! Yes, at that time, I too had imagined something like this would look spectacular on the beautiful Il-62. The windows in this narrowbody look a bit too high to balance the nice horizontal bounding lines, though the windows with the earlier multiple small arches are simply fantastic. (my personal opinion!). Further, the Air India on the tail has been done along the portion with the maximum coverage, which looks nice (unlike the current ATR-42 with the Flying Swan livery). Thanks a lot, once again!
Cheers, Sumantra.

Speaking of leased Ilyushins, here is one of the 3 IL-76s leased by Air India Cargo in the late 80s: CCCP-76479, an IL-76TD from Aeroflot's Polar division wearing her signature Arctic/Antarctic Red color scheme, & Soviet Flag. (Unlike the leased IL-62M, the 3 IL-76s retained their Soviet Flag on the tail).
IIRC, she was a regular on AI Cargo runs to Zurich.
Here she is at BOM in 1989, doing duty for Air India.

Thanks - this is interesting. A.net has another picture of this bird
http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/photos/5/3/0/1304035.jpg
The information shows that this picture is circa 1986.
So, this plane wore three sets of colours! Air India could have put some decals on this place - but then, decals were not quite popular in those times, paint jobs were more common!
Thanks once again for your periodic efforts to pull out such gems from history!
Cheers, Sumantra.

Sumantra, you might fancy this ..... my mom came across one of my father's old Air India "broadsheets" (these were timetables for the flight crew from the AI operations office) from back in 1986. It has some info about the leased Il-76 freighter ops.
I've been trying to find one of his old broadsheets from the time when the Il-62M was in service for Air India, but have been unsuccessful thus far. I (or rather my mother) will keep looking .... untill then enjoy some Il-76 info !

Last edited by 747-237 on Fri Jan 25, 2013 8:23 pm; edited 1 time in total

Deb, this is very interesting indeed! I have seen pictures of the leased Il-76 on A.net, and have been absolutely fascinated with their history,but did not find anything very relevant on the general Internet. This is fascinating first-hand matter, and gives a good insightinto the operations in the 1980s, a time of great turmoil for the airline. Thanks a lot for sharing this with us!
Cheers, Sumantra.

Deb, you will never cease to amaze all of us. Just when one had thought that all existing pictures of this exotic hybrid liveried beauty had been exhausted, you come up with yet another one, this time, in my then, and current home-base. Thanks a lot, you just made my day...for many days to come. Do you have any other details of this picture? Ramp photography was frowned upon then even more than today, was this a part of an official photo-shoot for the then relatively new IGIA T2? Or did you scan this in from a magazine picture, where it came as a part of a photo-shoot, where the photographer had explicit ramp permissions? Or were you the photographer, with as much of enthusiasm as you have now, if not more! Thanks once again, this is a very rare find! Sumantra.